Artwork has been with me for a long time, since I used to draw castles, treasure maps, pirates and cowboys and indians, up until I began exhibiting artwork around New Haven.

The critical shift happened when I became interested in symbolism. Aesthetic became a direct product of the strength of the signifier, or at least the coherence between the world of art and the world of symbols, as a codependentlandscape.

I drew on the Japanese "mon" or family crests, which resemble my logo for the Impossible Machine. I felt that the idea of ink was alive in those forms, and equally in calligraphy and certain forms of abstract expression.

Aesthetic has always been impossible in several ways.

First, it does not usually serve a mechanical function, even if it resembles a machine.

Secondly, the impossible is possible in two dimensions using tricks of perspective along the lines of M.C. Escher.

Third, while art is a product it does little more than perpetuate its own impetus; the product of art is not something else, the way a machine would produce energy or provide for a function independent of the machine.

Like perpetual motion would be, it has a way of seeming self-serving and introspective.

To see what it does you practically have to become part of the machine.